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Two Parking Garages in Paris

Two Parking
Garages in Paris

Paris,
France. 1925

Architect: Konstantin
Melnikov

During the 1920s Konstantin
Melnikov started to work on a series of projects in which he attempted to
transform the morphology and circulation of the urban parking aiming to make
them more efficient. The system proposed by Melnikov was named Direct-flow System
and it consisted in differentiating the access and the exit of the parking
locating them in the opposite ends. The vehicles did not have to use the
reverse gear at any time because they would access from one extreme and they
would leave the building through the opposite one. Therefore, each garage area
would have one lane on each side to accelerate the flows.

Melnikov did several projects
based on this system. One of the most interesting examples was in Paris where
he developed two different proposals with apparent opposed morphologies. This
commission was given to Melnikov when he was working on the Soviet Union
Pavilion of the Paris Universal Exhibtion. None of the projects were finally
built.

The first proposal was a direct
application of the Direct-flow System for a parking with 1,000 spaces. Two ramps
located in each side (one for a access and the other one as an exit) allowed
the vehicles to occupy the first free space without having to make more than a
complete round to one of the ramps. The system was a vertical evolution of
Melnikov prototype. Structurally, both cantilevered ramps kept in balance by
supporting each other and stiffening to safeguard the turbulence of the wind
through two tensioners that were ornamented with giant human statues.

The project, located on one of
the bridges of the Seine River, has a certain irony due to the relationship
between the bridge as an emblem of the Parisians like for street life and
walking, and the parking that personified a new era based in the car as the new
mechanism for moving around the city.

The horizontal structure of the
first proposal with the ramps on both sides stretching this configuration
disappears in the second project presented. In this case, the centripetal
organization of the ramps ends up forming a cube of 50 meters of each side.
Therefore, the ramps (two for access and two for exit) create a three-dimensional
circulation interlacing to reach the maximum height. The parking spaces are
located among the free spaces of the ramps. The layout of the parking spaces is
similar to the previous proposal.

All the redrawn drawings of both parkings are from the publication: JAQUE, Andrés; NAVARRO BALDEWEG, Juan. Melnikov, Car park for 1.000 vehicles, Paris 1925] HENLEY, Simon. The Architecture of Parking. London and have been extracted from the Proyectos 7 / Proyectos 8 Etsam BlogMore info at DTA Pangea